


Alone

by Itsagoodthing (mybatboys)



Category: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybatboys/pseuds/Itsagoodthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short drabble conceived after I had an utterly bad day. Warning: Unspecific, major character death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone

He stands among many, yet he feels completely alone. Turning the single white rose in his fingers, he inwardly curses the sun. How dare the heavens allow so much light to fall upon such a dark day. It didn’t seem right. Couldn’t the cosmos tell that today wasn’t a day for warm sunshine? 

Today was a day for dark clouds that would open up and pour a cold, acid rain down upon him. Thunder that would drown out the screaming in his soul. Wind that would blow cold against his rain-soaked body, chilling him to the bone and making him as numb on the outside as he wished he would feel on the inside. Because, numbness would be better than the pain that consumes him in his entirety. Unrelenting and encompassing him-- suffocating him until, he fears, he will no longer have the willpower nor the desire to swim through its murky depths in search of the surface. He knows its there, knows the surface is real and that it does exist even though his heart is trying to convince him otherwise.

He knows because he’s swam through the murky waters of Grief before. More than once. Each time in the past he was successful in reaching the surface, breaking through and drawing in a long, gasping breath of life to expel the dark waters he’d been drowning in. He’d broken free, but at a cost. Each time he’s thrown back in, he’s a little weaker than the time before and the undertow was getting harder and harder to swim against. There is a part of him that believes he won’t be strong enough to reach the surface this time. A part of him that doesn’t even want to try.

The rose in his hand betrays him and he looks down to find a drop of blood weeping from his fingertip. He focuses on this, pressing against his finger and watches as the droplet grows until it can no longer bear its own weight and falls, landing on a pristine, white petal. Looking at the drop of blood for a moment, he’s mesmerized how it’s content to stay perfectly intact while ruining the rose’s purity. He takes a finger and slowly smears it along the length of the petal, feeling better now that they are both damaged.

With all the energy he has within, he takes a step and then another until his path ends at the open grave that is taking his love away from him. He watches as it slowly pulls her down deeper into the darkness beneath and knows he has to say goodbye; after all, that’s whole purpose for coming. Knowing this fact does not make it any easier to fulfill his duty. Maybe one day he will be able to let her go, but that day is not today.

Taking a long draw of breath from the rose, he closes his eyes, trapping its scent within and allows it to fall from his fingertips. He watches as it tumbles, end over end, before being swallowed forever by the darkness.


End file.
